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My understanding is that many modern Amtrak locomotives are equipped with PTC. Either way, the problem was that the track was not yet equipped with the necessar
by tjohns 9y ago
My understanding is that many modern Amtrak locomotives are equipped with PTC. Either way, the problem was that the track was not yet equipped with the necessary transmitters to communicate with the train (and isn't yet mandated to, since the railroad industry keeps lobbying to move the implementation date forward).
In Amtrak's defense, my understanding is that this track was actually owned by WSDOT / Sound Transit. And the mainline track (privately) owned by Union Pacific / BNSF isn't any better. Amtrak owns very little track of it's own on the west coast.
The failure to deploy PTC is a systemic issue with the entire railroad industry.
- AdamJacobMuller 9y agoAmtrak owns very little track of it's own, period.
- astronautjones 9y agoWhat could go wrong?
- justicezyx 9y agoClassic "obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility"... My problem, not my problem, his problem, not his problem... What a stupid situation...
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoAmtrak doesn’t really make a profit on its own. Anyone who has ever travelled portland to Seattle knows how slow it can be as freight gets priority.
- dawnerd 9y agoPretty much true for the entire coast - not to mention outright expensive. I looked at a ticket from Portland to la and it was more than a flight and they’d probably stick me on a bus in Bakersfield.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoIt's worse when Amtrack does have priority and their habitually late trains block other trains that could be using the track.
- bogomipz 9y agoThen it should be broken up and managed differently. The idea that a company with a sanctioned monopoly who receives over a billion dollars a year in subsidies loses money is absurd.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoYou are basically demanding that the service should not exist. No one will compete for these routes, very few train systems in the world are profitable in themselves (even JR would lose money if it wasn’t for train station real estate).
- bogomipz 9y agoNo I am not "basically demanding" that the service should not exist. There is no reason why smaller regional companies couldn't exist and be profitable, offer better service and provide a compelling alternative to buses.
- AstralStorm 9y agoIn Poland we still have the relatively medieval central radio and lights or semaphore system, tiered with rules to override it via radio plus really dumb automated braking system with train central detector, also enforcing speed limits in more advanced versions. Plain old local moving block systems are widespread but US does not mandate them. These are all mandatory (esp. the wired one where light or semaphore control is tied to NTC and/or PTC) And the system is really dumb and electrical, not electronic. It is considered one of Automatic Train Protection systems. (The Polish short is SHP, translated as Automated Train Braking. The other system is Radio-Stop, a dumb radio alert system of local range triggered mostly manually forcing braking of all cabs in range.) Similar slightly more modern systems are still used throughout Europe. The fact they are dumb (train is only slightly smarter) makes them cheap to deploy. They are mostly supervised or not automated other than the moving block light signal. (Which is often local and can be overridden at low speed only after radio confirmation.) SHP is placed before speed limits and stations to alert the conductor. And if you pass the second one while the first is not cleared it means the train is runway and automated breaking is applied. The "logic" is in the train. Compared to this Amtrak style PTC needs a big central computer system and control lines plus a train with an impressive array of sensors with remote data. Similar to ERTMS class 3. US used to have legacy inductive systems in place, but for dumb cost saving reasons the companies were allowed to nor install them anymore.